advice from a fake consultant

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

On Pulling A Little Prank, Or Hey-Hey-Hey, Good Bye!

OK, America, so I pulled a tiny prank tonight—and it was so classic that I have to tell you all about it.

It involves freedom of speech, a friendly message to one of those crazy Republicans we all know—and it forced that crazy Republican to get up at three in the morning because he could not handle the threat to his world view.

Wanna hear all about it?

Then come along and follow the story…because it’s worth it.

So here’s the deal: we have a neighbor who just has not been able to let go of the fact that McCain lost. If you drive past his one-home gated community, there on the giant steel gate is his giant McCain/Palin banner, flying proud…even to this day.

Well, driving past it every day started to give me an idea…

What if I made a banner of my own, and put it up across from his gate, so that the first thing he would see on Inauguration Day would be my special message?

Nothing mean…just something funny.

So I went out the other day, bought me a giant piece of posterboard and a big marker, and put the classic message “Na-Na-Na-Na…Na-Na-Na-Na…Hey-Hey-Hey…Good Bye!” in red letters big enough for all to see.

And tonight, at about 3AM…I put it up.

I had to drive a little way down from his property to pull over—and clad in my camouflage jacket, I surreptitiously crept up to the property across the street, which is a piece of uncleared forest.

My goal: the telephone pole just immediately across from the heavy metal security gate…and its giant banner.

There was almost no wind…and it was quiet. Too quiet.

After about 50 feet of walking, I could hear the dogs beginning to stir.Two, maybe three, starting to bark.

Only 25 feet to go now, and I could see my target, the telephone pole, approaching fast.

The dogs were starting to go nuts, but it’s likely the owners have to endure that several times a night as other people walk by, so I wasn’t too concerned.

So now I’ve made it to the pole—and just to show how polite I am about this kind of thing, I actually tied the sign to the pole with a string, so as not to damage the pole.

Then I set it down, facing his gate, and walked the 75 feet or so back to my car, hopped in, and drove away.

Mission Accomplished.

Two minutes later I’m back home, and The Girlfriend says: “let’s go back and see the sign”.

Chuckling, we hopped in the car for the two minute ride back.

Much to our surprise…it was gone!

Apparently the owners have been sitting up, awaiting The Apocalypse all night, and now they’re sitting around the living room looking at my sign and spitting and fuming at the desecration of…well, as it turns out, the only thing desecrated was their minds, I guess.

After all, the poster was not on their property—in fact, no one even crossed over onto their side of the street during the entire event. And nothing was damaged in any way…and the sign didn’t even desecrate Our Dear Sarah Palin.

(By the way, if you’re married and obsessed with Sarah Palin…how awkward do you think that must be?)

And apparently after spending the entire night waiting for the attack on his sign that never came…he’s now imported the infected sign…the Liberal Trojan Horse, if you will…onto his compound—right into the gated community of one home…where it is even now probably fueling his delusions of disaster.

So I guess I did what I set out to do. I sent a friendly message, it obviously affected the poor souls hiding behind the giant security gate…and even now, I suspect the thing they just can’t get out of their minds is that Barack Obama is going to be inaugurated, whether they like it or not, and all the denial and fear and paranoia in the world isn’t going to make the reality of it go away.

well, you know, the idea was to get into this one person's head...and it apparently worked.

i was amazed i wrote this contemporaneously as well, but it was so good...and i wanted it to be a "morning of..." and not a morning after inauguration" story...and as so often happens, deadlines drive work hours.